


Watch Over Me

by cakeisatruth



Category: BioShock
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Recovery, Unreliable Narrator, Withdrawal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-11
Updated: 2017-04-29
Packaged: 2018-04-18 18:56:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 10,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4716851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cakeisatruth/pseuds/cakeisatruth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Little Sisters can be cured in a matter of seconds, but it takes far longer for one to overcome everything she's been brainwashed to believe. A story of recovery, starting over, and relearning how to live life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part I

**One**

My daddy likes ADAM and the special little needles. He shows me all the time what they're like and how they work. You have to put them in your wrist just right, he said, but then his wrists started getting bad marks so he needed to use other parts of his arms. I don't have marks on my arms. My arms are not like Daddy's.

My mommy used to like the ADAM and the needles, too. She was nice sometimes because she'd put fire on things with her hands and then we would use it to make dinner. Other times she was really mean. When she was mean she threw lots of things around the house and sometimes she threw them at me and Daddy. That didn't happen for very long because some people in uniforms came to our house and then I wasn't allowed to live with my mommy and daddy anymore. I cried for a long time when they told me that, and they said it would be okay and I was going to a new place to live, an orphanage.

There was a bad man at the orphanage. Big room, lots of beds, lots of girls like me, disappearing one by one. Doctors sometimes, giving us things to smell that made it hard to think. No mommy, no daddy, just the bad man and once, the lady. The movies play on repeat all day and night and...

I...

I have a hard time remembering.

**Two**

I have another daddy now. He's nicer than the other daddies because some of the other daddies do scary things with their hands. Mr. Bubbles doesn't do that. He lets me talk to him while he does important stuff like fighting the bad people. If you have a bad daddy you have to be very, very quiet and hope he will forget about you.

Mr. Bubbles doesn't forget about me. Lots of times a day he comes to the hidey hole to get me and then we look for angels. He takes care of all the strangers who come. Things are very mean and nasty when I'm getting ADAM, but after that I remember that things aren't scary. When I get tired he puts me back in the hidey hole. I am getting better at this. All good girls gather.

Sometimes lots of strangers are there, like when I am getting ADAM. They are scary, but Mr. Bubbles says they can't hurt me. He uses his special hand powers on them. That makes me laugh. Sometimes he makes them dance and sometimes they think they are my daddy.

I'm very good at showing Mr. B where the angels are. I can smell the rose petals from very far away and that makes him happy because I share my ADAM with him. I'm a good girl. The posters say so.

There are lots of girls like me. Sometimes I see them walking around with their daddies. They want for-real daddies just like I do. We're not supposed to talk to each other. If there is a girl in the hidey hole, all you are allowed to do is sing little songs with each other because singing is not talking.

We are always being watched.

The bad dreams come. I wait for Mr. Bubbles to knock on the hidey hole. When I have more ADAM in my tummy, it will feel better again.

**Three**

Sometimes I see lonely daddies. There is a difference between lonely daddies and mean daddies. The lonely ones are the looking ones who go back and forth to hidey holes looking for the girl that belongs to them. I think they are sad.

The mean daddies are the ones you have to be very quiet for. Sometimes they come up to Mr. Bubbles and me and they try to hurt us. I don't know why they do this – I'm a good girl – but you're always safe with your daddy. That's Mr. Bubbles's job, to keep me safe. I get ADAM for him and then we are both happy.

I'm tired, I want dream time, but Mr. Bubbles is moving me along. We have a job to do. I have to be a good girl, and more ADAM will make me feel better.

I do not remember ever being so tired. I pull the needle out of the angel and drink down my ADAM. I think it tastes like cherries. What is a cherry? I'm not sure, but I think I must have had one once or twice before.

Too many gathers. I can feel the juice from the angels sloshing in my tummy. Mr. B takes me to the hidey hole again, and I am glad it is empty. I want to sleep for a long, long time.

**Four**

It isn't safe today. There was an angel, but when I went to help him, I stepped in glass. It was red on my feet. I don't want to lose any ADAM. Mr. Bubbles let me be careful about that, because I had to make sure there was no glass in there, like I learned once a long time ago. When there wasn't any more, my feet had rose petals.

We are in another room and water is dripping from the ceiling. I put my feet in the water and the rose petals float away. I think they are not so bad.

The people who want to hurt us have friends today. I don't like them. I just want to gather ADAM for Mr. B, so I yell to him and he makes them dance. Today they try to pick me up, but I scream. My daddy will protect me.

First it hurts. Then it stops hurting, but my arms have rose petals. Mr. Bubbles is taking me back to the hidey hole. I don't understand why. We have hardly done any gathering today. Maybe it is because of the scary people. He leaves me here and goes to do some more work. I wonder what he does when I am not there.

My tummy hurts again. I hope Mr. B will come back soon so I can get some more ADAM to make it feel better. It hurts so much that I cannot sleep, so I start crawling. I hope I will be able to find him this way. I need Mr. Bubbles with me or I cannot gather ADAM, but I'm not sure where he is.

There is another part of the hidey hole with a daddy coming toward it. He doesn't see me, I am invisible. Maybe if he saw me he would let me have some ADAM to help me. Everything is very fuzzy.

The daddy has a girl like me on his back. I hope she comes in so that we can sing the song about the House of Upside-Down. I like that one the best. She is being very, very quiet. I hope he is not a bad daddy. It is getting harder to see him. I crawl forward some more and he sees me. I should go back.

There is not enough ADAM. I think I decide to take a nap.

**Five**

It is very cold and very hot. And then it is soft everywhere. I think someone is trying to smother me. You cannot smother a girl like me because we only grow rose petals. I have to get back to Mr. Bubbles. Somebody is touching my forehead.

"She is with fever. Two, perhaps three days."

It is a lady's voice, and she might be a mommy. We are not supposed to see the mommies, only our daddies when they come to get us. My daddy will come back and make her dance and keep me warm. Then she will be an angel and I will help her and drink her ADAM.

I need ADAM. I am shaking all over. My daddy will come soon and rescue me from the bad mommy.


	2. Part II-I

**Six**

There is a bed here. Beds are not for girls like me. Why am I in a bed? There is a hidey hole in this room, but it takes me a long time to get into it. I am still shaking. Where is Mr. Bubbles?

The mommy comes in again. She's a bad mommy because all mommies are bad. When she stands in front of the hidey hole, I crawl further back.

"I do not want to hurt you," she says, and her voice sounds different from anyone else's I have heard before. "You are scared of me, yes? The others were too."

The others? She must mean the other Sisters. I glance around the room. Nothing looks right, so I must be very sick. There is no pink, no rose petals, no angels. It is very cold and dark. Maybe I am dreaming. I have never had a dream, but I know what they are. I don't remember where I heard about them, though.

"You're in big trouble," I tell the bad mommy. "Mr. B's gonna hurt you so much."

She has a tiny smile on her face. "Come out when you are ready," she says. "I have very nice place for you." Then she leaves.

I stay in the hidey hole, quiet, listening to my breathing.

**Seven**

Good girls gather. How can I be a good girl if there are no angels? Mr. Bubbles hasn't come back. What if the mommy did something bad to him? She doesn't look like the mean people, but there are no mean people here either. It is an empty room except for a bed and a hidey hole and a door.

The bad mommy comes back again when it is late. She is holding something. I come a little closer and look at it, but I don't leave my hidey hole. She has part of a harvesting needle in her hands. I bet that's why mommies are bad. Nobody should take apart harvesting needles because they are hard to make.

"I think you are hungry," she says.

I don't move.

"I have something you like."

I don't want to talk to her, but my tummy hurts with how hungry I am. "Is it ADAM?"

"Something like that, yes. If you come out I can give it to you."

A bad mommy wouldn't give me ADAM. Either she is a good mommy or that is not ADAM. Are there good mommies? I reach my arm out of the hidey hole. If she is bad I will scratch her.

"All right," she says with a little smile, and hands me the broken needle. There is not even a needle part left, only the part to drink from. I suck a little bit out. It is thicker than ADAM, but it tastes the same. Maybe she is a different kind of mommy. A bad mommy doesn't have things like this.

"Come out when you are ready," she says again, kindly, and then she leaves the room and I finish my drink that is not ADAM.

**Eight**

It is easier to sleep in a hidey hole than a bed. The mommy comes and brings me more drink in the morning, and this time I come out. I sit on the bottom shelf of the hidey hole watching her the whole time in case she tries something bad, but she only sits on the bed watching me.

"There are lots of little ones in my safehouse," she tells me, gesturing to the door. "That is just outside. Would you like to come out and see?"

I drop the broken harvesting needle and climb back up into the hidey hole. When it is impossible for her to grab me I tell her my answer. "No."

"When you are ready."

"Okay." I will never, ever go out there.

She goes to the door, but stops before going out. "I am Tenenbaum," she says. "I am sure nice girl like you has nice name. Maybe later you can tell me."

"Okay."

The door closes. I lie in the hidey hole and think. It is nice to have a tummy full of the drink that is not ADAM, nicer than it is to have a tummy full of ADAM. This mommy might be nice. Maybe if I go with her she will bring me to some angels so I can be a good girl again. Maybe she will take me to Mr. Bubbles.

What is my name?

**Nine**

Missus Tenenbaum comes in two more times. She says it is important to have three meals a day.

"You are in the vent so much," she tells me on the second time. "Are you tired?"

Collecting ADAM makes me tired. I am not tired now, so maybe she will let me gather for my daddy. I shake my head no.

"You are not?" she asks, and I shake my head again. "Then I think you should come with me. It is not far, only out here." She loosely raises a hand to the door and then drops it. "It has another vent. Many little ones. And nice things."

"Where's Mr. Bubbles?" I ask her.

"He is not here. You are no more Little Sister, do not need your Big Daddy."

Why? Why is she taking my daddy away? It must be a mistake. "But I'm _always_ good for Daddy."

"Come here," she says, putting out a hand. "I will show you something nice."

I don't know what else to do, so I take it.

**Ten**

Missus Tenenbaum says there are things to do before I meet the other girls. Another room, a big one, with a desk and cabinet and two little beds. There is a funny smell in the air.

"Do you know your name?" she asks, touching my chin, but I move away. "I am sure it is nice name."

I hesitate, then shake my head. "My daddy's name is Mr. Bubbles."

"Hmm-mm? No matter. We will pick name for you." She takes a little notebook from her file cabinet. It's full of little scribbly marks. I keep looking around. She has a machine in her office that I remember. If you push the button under the picture of the Big Daddy, it gives you chips. If you push the button under the picture of the bad mommy, it hurts. I go over to it and press the button for chips. A can of vegetables falls out.

"Hey," I protest.

Missus Tenenbaum tilts her head in my direction. "Try the other button, little one," she suggests.

"No. It hurts."

"I promise it will not."

I press it, bracing myself for the shock, but it doesn't come. Instead, a bag of chips drops neatly at my feet. I pick it off the floor and tear it open.

Things are different in this world.

Missus Tenenbaum helps me pick a name out of the scribbles. She says they are words, made up of letters, and someday I will learn how to read. It makes me frustrated and she touches my cheek and tells me I am doing okay. I don't want her touching me. I scoot backwards.

She calls me _Alisha_ , because that is what she likes. I sit by the window, unravel one of the torn ribbons on my dress, and stick the end in my mouth.


	3. Part II-II

**Eleven**

Missus Tenenbaum lets me have some more of the drink that is not ADAM while I am in her office, and then she leans against the door.

"I must go now," she says. "It is time for the other little ones to have their lunch." She extends a hand, but I look the other way.

" _Kleine_ Alisha," she begs. It sounds weird to hear a name that means me.

I take her hand to stand up and follow her out. What she does not tell me is that we are going into a big, big room, and there are girls staring back at me. There are so many of them I can't count them, and they all look very curious.

I wrench free of her hand and bolt for the hidey hole.

It takes a long time for my heart to stop pounding. When I am calmer, I peek out. All the girls are sitting on the floor with something in their hands, and they are eating it. One is complaining about "bologna and mustard." I don't know what she means. I wriggle backwards, curl myself up tight, and try to go to sleep.

**Twelve**

It is very dark when I wake up. Carefully, I look out the hidey hole and see all the girls sleeping in their beds. I do not like beds. I slide down and walk around the big room. There are lots of toys and a table with some chairs. Some rectangular bars wrapped in paper are on the table.

Near the table I see some stairs. Finally, something I recognize. Upstairs there is a funny row of lines on the ground, some suitcases, and a door. Inside the door is a smaller door I could crawl through.

"Oh!"

I spin around. Oh, no, I've walked past one of those girls. She has funny pieces of paper in her hands and she looks guilty.

"I – I – " I want Mr. B around so I can hide behind him. I am shaking and she can see it.

"Don't be scared," she says, lowering her head. "I thought you were gonna tell Mama Tenenbaum on me."

What? "Tell Missus Tenenbaum on you?"

"Yeah. 'Cause I shouldn't be playing cards so late." The girl gathers up all the pieces of paper and moves them around in her hands.

"Is that a game?" I ask, feeling stupid.

She nods and scoots over a little, patting the space on the floor next to her. I sit down and she begins to lay out the cards, turning some over and laying some with the white side up. "Want to see how to play solitaire? That's my favorite game." She ducks her head shyly. Without waiting for my answer, she turns over a card from the biggest stack and I watch her hands move rapidly.

We don't sleep all this night.

**Thirteen**

Missus Tenenbaum wakes everybody up in the morning and gives us all weird little bits of food on plates. She hands me mine last, tapping it.

"This is bread," she tells me very slowly.

"Bread," I repeat.

"This is bread, and _this_ – " She points to the brown stuff on top of the bread. " – is called peanut butter."

"Peanut butter." I feel stupid. All the other girls know this already, and I don't.

"Yes." She touches my cheek and smiles. "You are learning, Alisha."

I still have to get used to having a name. Did I have one before?

I take a bite of bread and peanut butter. It tastes different from anything I have ever eaten before. Some of the other girls are smiling at me. Maybe I should say something to them.

Somebody knocks on the door and then comes in. It's another girl like me, and she is holding something in her hands. "I found it, Mama!" she announces with a huge smile.

"Thank you, _kleine_ Stacey," Missus Tenenbaum says, giving her a hug. "This will help me very much."

"What's that?" someone asks.

"It is Dr. Lamb's new audio diary. Eleanor's mother."

"Ohh." She nods, and the rest of us do too. I know who Eleanor's mommy is. Everyone does.

"She's a bad, bad mommy," someone yells.

"It is better if you not bother Dr. Lamb," Missus Tenenbaum says gently.

"Mommies are bad," I say. Missus Tenenbaum gives me a very tiny smile and goes into her office and shuts the door.

**Fourteen**

Stacey sits down with us and eats her bread and peanut butter. She does it without getting any on her face or hands. I watch her and try to imitate it. It doesn't work and I end up with peanut butter on my cheek. She turns and gives me a smile.

"Are you new?" she asks. "Did Mama just bring you here?"

"I think so," I say, feeling a little dizzy. Things happen so fast around here.

"My name's Stacey," she says with a smile. "Now you're supposed to tell me your name."

"A-li-sha." It feels strange on my tongue. I think she can tell, because her smile gets bigger.

"It's hard to be new," she says, giving me a pat on the arm. "I've been here longer than anyone else. Soon I get to go to my forever family."

"Who's your forever family?" I ask.

"I don't know them yet," she explains. "Mama Tenenbaum says she's going to find me one on the surface and I'll stay with them until I'm all grown up."

"Oh," I say even though I don't understand. She smiles again and nods.

"It's going to be super great."

For a while Stacey keeps talking. When I am done with my bread and peanut butter I go back into the hidey hole and look out. After a few minutes one of the other girls comes up with a big piece of something in her hands. It is pink like rose petals and looks soft.

"Do you want a blanket?" she says after a long moment.

I hesitate. "Does it hurt?"

"No. It's cuddly." She rubs it against her cheek. "See?"

"Okay." Maybe I can try it. I reach my arm out and she gives me the blanket. I wrap myself up in the warmth and watch the other girls head off to play a game.

**Fifteen**

Missus Tenenbaum comes out of her office a long time later with a book. She glances my way and smiles. "If you would like to come out, you can see the pictures."

"Pictures of what?" I ask.

"You will see." She motions to me, but I don't crawl out yet. She goes to sit down in a chair and the other girls make a circle around her. She opens the book and holds it up so everybody can see. Everybody except me, even though I squint, because it's too far away. Then she starts reading. At least I can hear the words. "'Giraffes eat leaves off of branches. They stretch their long necks up to get to the trees.'"

What is a giraffe? I strain my eyes, but I still can't see the picture. I wait until she is done reading the whole thing, then crawl out of the hidey hole. "Can I have the book?" I ask.

"Say 'please,'" she tells me. "It is magic word."

"What's magic?"

"The magic word gives you what you want."

"Can I have the book, please?"

She smiles and hands it to me. I open it and poke my finger at the scribbly marks on the bottom. "What are these?"

"Those are the words. Someday you will learn to read them."

I stare at the picture of the giraffe. Maybe, in another life, I saw one once.


	4. Part II-III

**Sixteen**

Tonight is my first night in a bed. I have been in the safe house with Missus Tenenbaum for ten days and she says it is time for me to learn to sleep in a bed like real girls sleep in. I am a real girl now. That means I'm not a Little Sister anymore. Missus Tenenbaum says that Little Sisters are real girls who got very sick and need to be helped. I don't think she's right. We need Little Sisters to help angels. I should be helping angels, too. Real girls aren't allowed to do that. I think it's because we're being punished, but I don't know what for.

Missus Tenenbaum writes everyone's name above their bed on a little card. She made one for me today and showed me how my name looks when you write it out. I think it looks nice. I like it a lot. I touch my card. I can't see it very well in the dark.

We do almost the same thing every day I have been here. We eat breakfast and then we play and then Missus Tenenbaum reads a story and we have lunch and we play until dinner and then we color and then we go to bed. She says tomorrow we will do something new, something I have never done before. Then she wouldn't let any of the other girls tell me what we were going to do. I hope it is a good thing.

**Seventeen**

Missus Tenenbaum's surprise is that we get to take a walk outside the safe house. She tells Emmeline, who has been here a long time, that she and I are going to go and get groceries for everybody and not to talk to anybody and not to stay out for a long time. Only the two of us get to go, and it makes me feel very special. We scurry from corner to corner so nobody sees us.

"Why are we doing this?" I ask.

"So we get some life skills," she says.

"What are life skills?"

"When you learn how to live with a family, like up on the surface," she says, and it looks like she is going to say more, but there is a thud and a loud groan and she freezes.

"Mr. Bubbles!" I shout, but she puts her hand over my mouth.

"Shh. Not all of the daddies are nice." She looks up at a hidey hole. "Let's go back through the vent. Hurry."

I climb up into the hidey hole, but she has some problems doing it so I pull her up. As we crawl through we run into a girl like us, except she is very pale and her eyes are glowing yellow. I recoil.

"Ew. What's wrong with your eyes?"

Emmeline pokes me. "We aren't s'posed to talk to anyone," she says in a loud whisper.

The girl doesn't seem to hear her. "I gots nothing!" she shouts. "No angels! See?"

Emmeline yanks me to the side and we crawl away, dropping down just outside the safe house so we can run back in. "I won't tell that you talked to someone," she says. "I promise."

"Thanks," I say, but I'm not sure why, and we head back inside.

**Eighteen**

Stacey gets to go meet her "forever family" in a week. She calls them that because she will get to be with them forever, or as long as she needs to. She says they are up on the surface. I ask Missus Tenenbaum and she says that is true. She tells me that sometimes a friend of hers comes down to Rapture and takes girls up to families and that this person is called a _social worker_. It's a big secret, though. A secret is something you're not supposed to tell anybody who doesn't already know.

Anyway, Stacey says she will get to meet them in a week and then stay with them forever and always. She's going to have something called _parents_ , which means a daddy and a mommy, except the daddy is a person. Missus Tenenbaum says she makes sure all the mommies she picks are nice mommies. That makes me glad to hear. Once Stacey leaves, we will get a new girl in the safe house. That's because we will have an empty bed.

**Nineteen**

Sometimes Missus Tenenbaum goes into her office and sits there for a long time and we can't see her. Today she is sitting in there with a little stick in her hand. She brings the stick to her mouth and then takes it away and blows out a long stream of gray.

"What's she doing?" I ask, pointing her out to one of the other girls. Jamie smiles.

"Mama is a dragon," she announces.

"What's a dragon?"

"They're big and they breathe smoke and fire like she is."

"Oh." At least I understand this explanation. I have seen lots of smoke and fire. I know it is for roasting marshmallows, but I've never had any marshmallows. When Missus Tenenbaum comes out, I ask her about this and she pats me on the head.

"Food is expensive, little one," she says. "It costs much money."

"I know," I say, even though I don't really understand what money does. You need a lot of money for food. That is why we eat the same thing every day: bread with peanut butter for breakfast, bologna and mustard sandwiches for lunch, and beans from a can for dinner. I decide that the next time we go for a walk I will find some food. That will make everybody happy.

**Twenty**

Stacey doesn't stop talking about her new family even though she hasn't even met them yet. She has to go up to the surface to meet them and then we won't see her anymore. That will be on Thursday, so on Wednesday we are having a party for her. Today is Sunday. (Missus Tenenbaum showed me all the days of the week.)

I asked Missus Tenenbaum how long it will be until I go to my forever family, and she said probably a year or two. She got out the calendar and showed me how long a year is if each day is a little box. A year is a very long time. Missus Tenenbaum says that by then I will be a real girl and know how to do real-life things and how to live on the surface. I hope she is right. There are so many things to learn. I told her this and she patted my head and said that that is why it will take so long, but that I will get it eventually. I liked hearing that.


	5. Part II-IV

**Twenty-One**

Every day except Saturday and Sunday Missus Tenenbaum divides us into three groups and we do something called school. The groups are based on how long we have been in the safe house. Stacey and Emmeline's group gets to go into the other room to do something else. Jamie's group sits down and reads books. My group doesn't get to do anything fun. Instead, Missus Tenenbaum gets the other groups started and then sits down with us and some shapes that are all different colors. She works on teaching us the names of the shapes and colors.

So far I know three shapes and one color. The color I know is blue. So many things down here are blue. I don't see why we need to know the other colors and Missus Tenenbaum says we do because it is important for when we go to the surface to live with families someday. The colors are different from anything I have ever seen. They are so bright. Is the surface bright like that? I want to find out soon, sooner than a year or two.

**Twenty-Two**

Today is Stacey's party. Missus Tenenbaum makes something called a cake for everybody and Stacey gets the biggest piece. Cake is very good. We all have a piece and then Missus Tenenbaum lets us sign a card for Stacey. She shows me how to write my name, but when I do it it looks bad. Stacey tells me she likes it anyway.

After that we play some games. The other girls teach me. We play Ring Around the Rosie, hopscotch, and a dancing game. I don't want to play the dancing game so I sit in the corner and another girl joins me with some cards in her hands. She's the same one I saw when I first got here. She tells me her name is Gia and then asks shyly, "Can I teach you to play War? I don't have anyone else to play against."

"Good idea, Gia!" Missus Tenenbaum says loudly. "Alisha learns her numbers." I look down.

"Sure," I say, a little embarrassed. Gia teaches me all the numbers from ace to king.

**Twenty-Three**

Missus Tenenbaum is gone for a lot of the next day. When she comes back, her face is red and puffy. Gia and I play War over and over again. She helps me when I mix up my numbers.

"When is the new girl coming?" someone asks Missus Tenenbaum.

"She is not here yet. She comes when she finds us."

"Did I find you?" I ask her. She smiles and pats my head.

"Yes, _kleine_ Alisha. All little ones find us in their own time."

"So…when will she find us, then?"

"When she is ready," Missus Tenenbaum says, and she sounds very, very sure of herself. I look over and throw down another card. Jack to three. I pick them both up and add them to my pile.

**Twenty-Four**

It takes four days for the new girl to come. Stacey's bed is empty. We don't see the new girl right away, but Missus Tenenbaum is keeping her in her office. She says the girl who doesn't have a name yet is very sick because when you stop eating ADAM you get very sick for a little while. We ask lots of questions about her. There aren't lots of answers.

We keep working on the shapes and colors in school time, and sometimes we learn how to tell numbers apart from letters. Missus Tenenbaum says she is teaching us something called _life skills_ , which means that we will know how to live on the surface and be real girls again. She tells me I was a real girl once. I'm not sure it happened.

Life skills has a lot of different parts. It is numbers and letters and shapes and colors and math and reading and cooking and money and so many different things I think I will never learn them all. Missus Tenenbaum says I am very smart. Smart is a good thing, but she always looks so sad when she says it.

**Twenty-Five**

We wake up in the middle of the night to the new girl screaming, "Don't touch her!" She is screaming so loud you can hear her through the walls. A bunch of girls start to cry. I cry, too. I want her to stop.

Missus Tenenbaum pokes her head out the door and calls over the screaming. "Little ones. Go back to bed." Some of the girls do. I don't. I sit on the floor with my hands over my ears. I am not the only one. There are lots of other girls sitting next to me doing exactly the same thing.

"Don't touch her! She's dirty!" the new girl shrieks.

It takes maybe five hours for Missus Tenenbaum to get her to be quiet again and then she comes outside. "Oh, little ones," she says sympathetically. "It is over now. We can go back to sleep." She walks around, helping us back to bed. When I get under the covers she touches my hair. " _Kleine_ Alisha. Everything will be okay." I hope she is right.


	6. Part III-I

**Twenty-Six**

The new girl's name is Nicole, which is what Missus Tenenbaum calls her, but most of us call her Nikki for short. She stays in the hidey hole all day, without even coming out to eat, because she's too scared. The opening is big enough to give her food, but Missus Tenenbaum says she won't be getting anything until she comes out.

"That's mean," I say when she first tells us the rule. "You're being a big mean mommy, to do that."

She frowns. "That is not nice to say."

"It's true even if it's not nice."

She sighs, sitting down next to me and taking my hands. I don't squeeze her hand like she squeezes mine, but I don't pull away, either. "I am trying to help her to learn," she says, so quietly that nobody else can hear. "If she does not come out, she cannot get better."

"It's still mean," I tell her.

After that, she doesn't say any more about it. She just lets go of my hands and we go back to the lesson for school. I can count to twenty now, and I know most of the alphabet. That makes her smile again.

**Twenty-Seven**

By the time Nikki comes out, I know all my letters and what sounds they make. Even though she could do school with us, she just sits by herself, without looking at or talking to anyone. Missus Tenenbaum doesn't mind her doing that as long as she doesn't distract anyone. I try sitting next to her one day, but she scoots in the other direction.

"Please don't touch her," she says with a little whimper. "She's dirty."

"Why are you talking like that?" I ask.

"Dirty," she says again, putting her face in her hands.

Missus Tenenbaum taps me on the arm. "Leave her alone for now," she tells me quietly, and looks around at the other girls. "Come on. We do not stare. To stare is impolite."

When she says this, Nikki jumps to her feet, covering her ears and screaming so loudly that everyone looks at her. She runs back to the hidey hole and curls up in there. Missus Tenenbaum acts like it didn't happen, and keeps on giving us lessons.

I guess Nikki doesn't know that if someone is being impolite, you're supposed to be nice back. She has to learn that, just like I had to.

**Twenty-Eight**

At dinnertime, Missus Tenenbaum tells us something about Nikki we didn't know before. When Nikki was a Little Sister, she had to be rescued from a very, very bad daddy. He wanted to harvest the Little Sisters. We all gasp when she says this. Being harvested means you go to sleep forever and don't wake up.

"You know how scary it would be," she tells us. "So we all must be kind, and give her time to get better." She explains that Nikki acts funny and says things that don't make sense sometimes because it was awful for her when she had to be taken away from her daddy and cured so she wasn't a Little Sister any longer.

I look at Missus Tenenbaum's office, where Nikki is eating all by herself.

"We must try to be her friends," Missus Tenenbaum adds. "Maybe she does not get better for a long time. That is okay, too."

We nod. Everybody is quiet while we finish eating. Nikki finishes before us, comes out of the office, and sits against the wall. Her eyes are big when she looks at us, like she wants to make sure to see where we all are.

I am just finishing my chips. My Pep bar tastes better when it into little pieces and eat the pieces one at a time, so I break it in two. Then I look at Nikki, and she looks back at me. I reach out to her, still holding the Pep bar. Slowly, she comes a little bit closer to me, looking suspicious, before darting forward to grab it. She curls up against the wall again to eat it.

Missus Tenenbaum smiles at me. "That was very nice thing to do," she says. "Nicole. Will you tell Alisha 'thank you,' please?"

Nikki mumbles something I don't understand, because her mouth is still full of Pep bar. When she finishes chewing and swallowing, she has a very tiny smile on her face.

**Twenty-Nine**

Even after I give Nikki some of my Pep bar, she likes being in Missus Tenenbaum's office more than being out in the big room with us, but that is okay. Everyone thinks so, so it must be true. Right now, all the rest of us are talking.

"My daddy wasn't a bad daddy," I tell everyone. "He was a nice daddy. He was nice to me."

" _Most_ daddies are nice," Gia says. "I heard that if you meet a bad Mr. B, that's the last thing you're gonna get to do, 'cause of the harvesting."

We shiver. Constance rocks a little in her seat. "Nikki was different. She's brave, and she got away."

"She's a hero!" Kaylee pipes up, moving her hands like she's turning pages. "Like in…in the books! And in the books, they celebrate the heroes, remember?"

I think I remember that. Missus Tenenbaum talked to us about what celebrating is.

A great idea comes to me, and I jump up. "We should celebrate Nikki being a hero," I announce. "'Cause celebrating sounds fun."

The other girls give me big smiles. Constance waves her hand to get Missus Tenenbaum to come over, and explains what we want to do. "Mama Tenenbaum," she says, "can we celebrate?"

Missus Tenenbaum puts a finger on her chin like she is thinking. "Maybe we have special day where we celebrate _all_ of you," she says slowly.

"Tomorrow?" Gia says right away.

Missus Tenenbaum smiles. "Yes, tomorrow is good. We will take off school and celebrate."

We are all very excited to hear that.

**Thirty**

Just like Missus Tenenbaum said, the next day we don't have school. We play little games - like with cards, and hopscotch. There's lots of learning, but it's fun learning, and I even show Nikki how to play cards. She sits right next to me and smiles a lot.

Gladys shows me how to play marbles. I get a few out of a special drawer to start, and then we flick the marbles around a big circle in a special way. If you make somebody else's marble fly out of the circle, you get to keep it. Some of the other girls' marbles are very nice and special, but I don't win any of the really nice ones. I win a few and I lose a few.

Some of the _other_ games we play are like school, but lots more fun. Missus Tenenbaum gives us a math problem, or a word, and whoever knows it first gets a point. If you get five points before anyone else, you are allowed to have a Pep bar or a bag of chips. Emmeline is best at this, and she wins a lot. That makes some of the other girls get upset and argue that she has lots of snacks stashed away already. Missus Tenenbaum just quiets them and gives us some easier words, ones it's easy to read if you are new here.

I feel very, very happy going to bed that night. Today wasn't hard at all. Just as I start to fall asleep a little, I hear somebody moving. It's a girl walking around and around the room, and sometimes I hear a little crinkle. She gets closer to my bed slowly, and then she stops.

"Alisha?"

"Yes?"

She holds something in the shape of a rectangle out. I take it and squint at the wrapper. Then I smile. It's Emmeline walking around the bedroom, handing out Pep bars to the girls who didn't win any earlier.


	7. Part III-II

**Thirty-One**

I trace the little dots on my paper that Missus Tenenbaum made before the lessons started. Next to me, Nikki watches as my line covers the tiny marks. When I have one letter finished, I look up at her.

"H." She watches as I make the rest of the letters. "A…and T."

After Nikki gets all the letters right, it's my turn to figure out the word, so I make the sounds of each letter. "/H/…/a/…/t/. Hat."

Nikki gets a little smile on her face. "Next one," she says, and scoots closer. "V…A…T."

"Vat." I sound it out, then frown and look at her. "What's _vat_?"

But she doesn't know, and I don't know, so we look it up in the children's dictionary. Neither of us can read the words in the dictionary for big people, so Missus Tenenbaum has this one. It has plenty of pictures, and we use it a lot. When I find the picture of a vat, I point to it.

Nikki scrunches up her face. "Why don't they just call it a bucket? It looks like one."

"I don't know. Maybe they wanted to make more words."

Surface people words don't make very much sense. Is this how they talk up there? I never knew there was so much to learn, and it feels like the more I learn, the more I don't know.

I sigh and start a new word. By the end of our reading lesson, we have also looked up _mat_ and _drat_.

**Thirty-Two**

The reason Nikki and I help each other learn is because we came to the safe house so close together. Until she got here, I was the one who knew less than anybody else, but now she is newer than me. Missus Tenenbaum told me it would be nice of me to help her learn, since I have more _experience_ (which is a word that means how much stuff you have done before). "We all teach each other here," she said, and made me feel better when I said I didn't know how to teach. She says that just by being around each other, we are all teachers and students.

I know a lot of things. I know how to gather ADAM for my daddy and take care of angels. I also know my letters and most of my numbers and what books are and the kind of food people eat on the surface and plenty of new words. But there are so many things to learn.

The girls in the other groups at school are learning things way harder than I am ready for. They already know how to cook food and paint pictures that look like something - mine are just big blobs - and Lera is even figuring out how to knit. That's when you take some yarn and needles and rub them together and a scarf comes out. I wonder if I will ever catch up.

Sometimes it seems like there is too much to do and I can't learn it all, but Missus Tenenbaum tells Nikki she can. If Nikki can do it, then I can do it. I am a very brave little girl. That's another thing I know, and it's a very important one.

**Thirty-Three**

Part of being in the safe house is learning how to be a normal little girl, the kind that girls on the surface are. Missus Tenenbaum says it doesn't make sense to just learn school things. That's why we do things like play games and listen to stories and draw with crayons. Drawing is like writing, except not as hard because you don't have to make letters. If we make a mistake at drawing all that happens is the picture doesn't look as good. If we make a mistake at writing, Missus Tenenbaum tells us to try the whole thing over again.

There is an easy part of writing, too, which is when we have big blobs of white called _shaving cream_ and Missus Tenenbaum has us practice writing with our fingers in it. If you make a mistake in the shaving cream, you can just wipe your hand over it and make it go away. It's easier, but messy and it takes a lot of cleaning up, so that is only for a special treat.

A few of the other girls have their own toys, but there are also toys that all of us share, like chalk and blocks you can use to build things. Rapture doesn't have all the same things that people on the surface do, but Missus Tenenbaum says she is doing the best she can.

Sometimes she talks about the things she wants to get for the safe house. The one that sounds best is called TV. Megan told me it's like a big box with moving pictures and sounds inside. I feel like I've seen one before, but I can't remember where.

Missus Tenenbaum wants to get things like that because it's what people on the surface have, so when we leave for the surface it won't be brand new. She doesn't want us to feel like we don't belong when we go to our forever homes. I have a hard time thinking about it. Sometimes it still feels like I don't even belong _here_.

**Thirty-Four**

The next time we are going to go for a walk, all of us get to go. This is the first time Nikki has ever gone on a walk as a girl and not a Little Sister, so she has a lot of questions about it. "Will there be bad people?" she asks us. "Will I see Mr. B? Is it safe?"

All of us tell her the same things: it's very safe because we always go in pairs, but we don't know whether we will see bad people or her daddy. That makes her mad, and she stomps her foot and says she wants to see him. She says if she can't see him, she doesn't want to go for a walk at all because it would be too scary to see a bad person if her daddy isn't there to protect her.

We try and try to tell her how much fun it is, and that someone will go with her as her partner, but she still doesn't want to do it. All she wants to do is stay in the safe house. While everyone lines up to go on the walk, she sits down and plays with some blocks instead, only looking at us sometimes when a pair takes their turn to go.

I wonder if she is going to get better someday. Are there ever girls who don't get better and just stay in the safe house? Do they get turned back into Little Sisters? I think that would be too scary to handle.

**Thirty-Five**

Missus Tenenbaum tells Nikki she doesn't have to go for a walk today if she doesn't want to, but next time, it would be good to at least try. "Even taking few steps outside is better than none," she says. I watch and I don't see anybody only take a few steps, but there are some girls who take a shorter walk than others.

Maybe we can help Nikki just go outside a _little_ bit. We are all trying to tell her it can be fun because you see things differently and you know so much more. Felicia is just starting to talk about some of the interesting things she's seen when we hear a strange noise. Kaylee runs in, trips, and goes _smack_ onto the floor. There are tears all down her face and she is breathing fast, her eyes bigger than I knew eyes could get.

Missus Tenenbaum goes to her quickly. "What?" she demands, her voice very high. "What is it? Why are you alone? Where is Gia?"

"The bad people!" Kaylee sobs, and she looks so scared. "The bad people have got her, Mama Tenenbaum, and I don't know…I don't know how I…" She is crying so hard she can't talk.

" _Scheisse_." Missus Tenenbaum looks upset and angry at the same time. "Girls! We need to go now!"


	8. Part IV

**Thirty-Six**

We all go out in a big group to try and find Gia. More of us means we can look in more places faster, but Missus Tenenbaum makes us stay in some groups. _It’s dangerous to go off on your own_. That’s called a life skill, which is kind of like a rule but not really.  
****

Kaylee shows us where she and Gia were, and we all start looking the best we can. Some of the girls stay behind and hug Kaylee, because she’s very, very scared and crying.

I am just looking around with Elvira when I hear a scream. It’s Kaylee’s voice again, but I can’t see her. “Something horrible!” she shrieks, running towards Missus Tenenbaum. “No! Stop it!”

Then I can hear a little, weak voice. “Mama Tenenbaum?” it says in a gurgle, like it’s talking through a bowl of soup. I realize it’s Gia.

“She is hurt,” Missus Tenenbaum says right away, and points to a hiding spot in the corner. “Go stand over there. All of you. Do not turn around. Do not make any noise.”

Kaylee cries harder and clings to her friends. She is so scared. I’m scared, too. I don’t want to look, but I want to know what happened. I need to know what is so horrible that it made her scream like that.

**Thirty-Seven**

We can’t see Gia, but I am at the back of the group, closest to her. If I listen very hard, I can hear talking.  
****

“I am sorry. I am sorry, _Schatz_.” Missus Tenenbaum is apologizing over and over and her voice is wet, like she’s crying.

Gia is quiet for a little bit. Then she whispers, “Mama Tenenbaum, will you sing me a song?”

“Yes. Of course.” Missus Tenenbaum takes in a breath that shakes a lot, and she starts to sing. I don’t understand the funny words, but Gia must, because she doesn’t complain or say anything. She probably heard the song before.

The singing only lasts a very short time, and then Missus Tenenbaum stops. I hear some rustling, and then she walks back over to us. Her face is all red around the eyes and cheeks, and her mouth is pinched tight.

“She is gone,” she tells us quietly. “We are going back.”

“Back?” someone asks from the front of the line.

“Back to the safe house.”

“What about Gia?” says a different voice. But she doesn’t answer, just makes us start walking again.

**Thirty-Eight**

When we get back, Missus Tenenbaum says she needs some time to be alone. She leaves us dinner to have when we are hungry, but we’re not supposed to bother her. Then she goes into her office and locks the door tight.  
****

We eat the food like normal and play like normal, but things don’t feel the same. My eyes keep trying to look at the shut door. Some of the girls sit outside it for a long time, waiting for it to open, because then she’ll come out.

I…I don’t feel right. It doesn’t feel good when someone is so sad. I don’t feel like smiling or playing so much. Lots of the other girls go to bed early, and I do too, without any fuss. I want to sleep so things will feel right again.

In the middle of the night, I wake up with a scary dream. Before I have time to think, I jump out of bed and bang on Missus Tenenbaum’s door. She needs to open it. If she’s there, the bad people won’t hurt me like they hurt Gia.

The door opens, and she catches me when I almost fall on her. “What is it?” she asks.

I cling to her legs. “Scary people in my dreams,” I whimper. “Scary, scary people. They want to hurt me.”

“Shh.” She pats my hair and leads me inside. “I will watch over you, _kleine_.”

She lets me sleep on a blanket on the floor in her office if it helps me feel safe. One of the other girls gets up and comes in, too, because the door is unlocked, and soon more and more are coming in to sleep. They are scared, too. Missus Tenenbaum says we can all stay with her if we need to, but only for tonight.

And it does help, just a little bit.

**Thirty-Nine**  
****

Mama Tenenbaum’s alarm clock is very loud. I wake up when I hear it, and so does she. But when she steps out of bed, we hear an even louder noise.  
****

“Ow!” It’s Parker. “Mama Tenenbaum, you’re stepping on my hair!”

Mama Tenenbaum sits back on the bed and tells her sorry. I look around. The floor is very crowded because all of us are sleeping on blankets. Only a few very brave girls are still in their regular beds.

We were all scared, then. That makes me feel a little bit better. Mama Tenenbaum does a laugh, just a soft one. “All of you!” she says like she’s making a little joke. “We are okay. The first three to get up can have a Pep bar with breakfast.”

That’s really special. We are never allowed to have Pep bars with breakfast, because they’re too sweet. We all hurry to get up so we can be first, but I think Mama Tenenbaum is just happy we’re all not so scared anymore. She lets each of us have our own Pep bar after all, not just the first three who got up.

“You do not have to share if you don’t want to,” she says, but a lot of us do. I break my bar in half and give one of the halves to Nikki. She gives me one of hers in return, and we eat.

**Forty**

Mama Tenenbaum calls the day a _holiday_ , which is an important day where you don’t have to do work or school. She says today should be a holiday because she has lots of thinking to do. That’s why she stays very quiet all morning.  
****

After lunch, she keeps us all in the same room and says she has a little announcement.

“We have new rule,” she tells us, and her voice is so soft we have to move in close to hear better. “No more walks. It is to keep you safe.”

Kathy’s face goes all crumpled up. “But you said we had to take walks so we could get used to being out there.” She twists her hands in front of herself like she is scared.

Mama Tenenbaum moves forward, running her fingers through Kathy’s hair. It looks strange and uncomfortable, but Kathy doesn’t act like it is. Maybe it’s different for her.

“We will need different solution,” Mama Tenenbaum says. “I will help you.”

The girls all around me nod and smile, like they feel better just from the words. And I don’t know why, but hearing it makes me feel a little better, too.


	9. Part V-I

**Forty-One**

The next morning, we have a long talk about what happened to Gia. Mama Tenenbaum tells us a bad person called a Splicer met her and tried to harvest her. When she says that, everybody gasps almost at the same time. Harvesting is what bad daddies do, and if you get harvested you go to sleep forever and become an angel.

She calms us down, and says normally Little Sisters are the only ones who could get harvested, because they have ADAM. But the bad person made a mistake. He thought Gia was a Little Sister still, so he tried to harvest her and instead she died.

We have lots and lots of questions, and everyone jumps up and down shouting and trying to ask what they have to know. I can’t stop shaking, and the louder it gets the harder I shake. None of the questions are getting answered, either. So many people are talking that Mama Tenenbaum can’t hear anything.

After some long minutes, she gets everyone sitting down and calmed a little, and says she will try to answer the questions. Here are all the things I learned from what she told us.

**Forty-Two**

Mr. Bubbles’s real name is Big Daddy. I wonder why he never told me that. A Big Daddy has the job of taking care of their Little Sister, like we used to be, and keeping them safe. If a Little Sister didn’t have a Big Daddy, she would be something called _vulnerable_ , which means somebody could hurt her.

Now that all of us are real girls, like we were before we got sick, we don’t need them anymore. Instead we need grown-ups, which are the parents in a forever family. Their job is to take care of a kid and keep them safe, just like Big Daddies do for their Little Sisters.

Then Jamie asks why the Little Sisters need so much protecting, and Mama Tenenbaum tells her it’s because of the work they do. Jamie’s next question is what the work is, and I realize I don’t know it, either. I only remember small bits about being a Little Sister. Remembering the things that happened before is even harder, maybe impossible. Was I always that way?

I have so many questions, and I’m not the only one. Mama Tenenbaum quiets us all down, then thinks for a long time before she takes a deep breath. We all listen while she tells us the reasons for having Little Sisters in Rapture.

**Forty-Three**

Little Sisters are here to gather ADAM. I remember that part. They gather ADAM with the daddies, and travel through vents (those are the hidey holes) because they are small. But once, all the Little Sisters were girls with mommies and daddies - real ones, not like Mr. Bubbles.

I don’t remember that. Neither does anyone else. Mama Tenenbaum says it’s a thing the doctors do, working to make sure the only thing we remember is being Little Sisters. Otherwise, we might not want to get the ADAM. It’s easier for them to tell lies.

“Do I have a mommy and daddy still?” somebody asks.

Mama Tenenbaum pulls her close. “Soon you will have forever family,” she says gently. “Soon all of you will. This place is here so you can learn to be girls again, the way it should be.”

If we hadn’t ever become Little Sisters, we wouldn’t have to remember how to be regular girls.

“I don’t want to see the bad people again,” I say.

She pats me on the head. “There are rules to keep safe,” she tells me. “Shall I tell them to you?”

We all say yes, and go quiet to listen again.

**Forty-Four**

Rapture has so many people who want to hurt us. Mama Tenenbaum says people like that are on the surface, too, but they are not as scary-looking as Splicers. They look like everybody else, or they might even look nice. Then she tells us a lot of rules about keeping safe, but they’re hard to remember because they swirl around in my head like colors and empty out again before I understand them.

One of them is the most important, and I hold onto that one. It’s about not going with anybody you don’t know. These people are called _strangers_ , and they are scary.

Mama Tenenbaum tells us sometimes strangers can be good, like how we were all strangers to each other once. Other times they can be bad and want to do bad things, so you have to stay safe by keeping close to your daddy.

“Your _Big_ Daddy? Like Mr. Bubbles?” Nikki asks. “Why did I have to stop seeing him if he kept me safe?”

“No, little one.” Mama Tenenbaum keeps her voice and her face all soft. “They are different. When you are well enough to go to surface, you will have a real father, one to keep you safe.”

We all nod along. Then she says something that makes nervous tingles shoot up all inside my belly.

She says, “You might even have a mother.”

**Forty-Five**

I am using crayons to draw a picture of three people. They are a mommy, a daddy, and a girl who is me.

My drawing is better now than when I first came here. Now I draw all the parts of a person: legs and feet and arms and hands and hair and faces. The mommy is smiling. The daddy is smiling. I haven’t drawn any face on the girl yet.

Mama Tenenbaum stops to look. Then she sits down next to me and suggests, “Tell me about picture.”

“This is a girl in her forever family.” I point to the people. “She has a mommy and a daddy. And they’re both happy she’s there.”

“Ah. This is very nice forever family.” She smiles, touching her fingers to the girl in my drawing. “How does she feel?”

“I think she likes them.” I draw eyes on her face and put her mouth in a little smile, not a big one. “She isn’t sure.”

Mama Tenenbaum nods. “So this is new family.”

“Yes.” I nod. “They only just got to be a family. But the mommy and the daddy keep the girl safe.”

“Just like your Big Daddy once did,” she says, and pulls me into a little hug.

“Yeah,” I answer, curling into her. “Just like Mr. B.”


End file.
